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Blanca Varela

Swifter is Time

Translated by Michael L. Smith

being in something
once or always
stone animal man
story of a color
swift shadow in my chest
time
time badgers me and contradicts me
I ask
I write in the air
with my tongue I write
with my hands and feet I write
with my eyes

love
a hostile wave knocks me over
I join words against words
I don't believe in any of this story
and nevertheless each morning
I invent the absurd brilliance that awakens me
the border of shadow
consciousness
the original trap
sun up
earth down

at the center the old gesture
of a tree that assaults me
with the innocence of trees
the song
that crosses the cloud
things
move beautifully toward death
the hour falls apart by itself
far from everything
brilliance and destruction
air in the rift
or rift in the air
neither stone or animal or man

the flower points out the crime
with a silent blush

nobody not even time itself
dare interrupt time